Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 by Henry Hunt

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Maria Louisa had already quitted. On the 1st of April all the alliedSovereigns entered that city as conquerors. The Emperors of Russia andAustria, and the King of Prussia, all of whom had been so repeatedlyconquered by Napoleon, who had generously, although foolishly, restoredtwo of them, after having conquered them and taken their capitals, now,in return for his generous conduct to them, had the meanness andthe cowardice to declare that Napoleon was the only obstacle to theestablishment of a peace; upon which he magnanimously, to save theeffusion of human blood, did not hesitate to offer his resignation.This was accepted; the French Senate met, and agreed to a provisionalGovernment, till a Constitution could be formed, and they passed adecree on the 2d of April, declaring Napoleon Buonaparte and his familyto have forfeited the Imperial Crown. It was agreed to by all the alliedSovereigns that Napoleon should retire to the Isle of Elba, which he wasto possess in _full sovereignty_--that he and Maria Louisa should, _forlife_, retain the titles of Emperor and Empress--that a large revenueshould be granted to both of them, and to the Empress the Duchies ofParma, Placentia, and Guastalla, which were to descend to her son. Thetreaty being thus arranged, on the 4th day of April, 1814, the braveNapoleon signed his abdication of the Crowns of France and Italy. Onthe 13th the treaty between the allied Powers and Napoleon receivedthe signatures of the contracting parties, and on the 28th of April heembarked at Frejus, in Provence, for the Isle of Elba, in the Britishfrigate the Undaunted.

In the meantime the English army under Lord Wellington had advanced fromSpain, invested Bayonne, and passed the Odour. A division under MarshalBeresford entered Bourdeaux. At Toulouse Wellington had a battle, andthe dispirited skeleton of an army under Soult was defeated about thetime that the news arrived of a cessation of arms.

Although Napoleon had retired, it yet required very considerable addressto replace on the Throne of France the Bourbons--a race that wasdeservedly despised and execrated by the whole French nation, with theexception of the lazy, indolent, rapacious, and profligate priesthood,and a few of the old bigotted nobility. The provisional Governmentpresented to the Conservative Senate a CONSTITUTION, and proposed thatLouis, the brother of Louis the Sixteenth, should, on the acceptance ofthat constitution, be declared King of France. It is time now to turnour eyes towards England, from the affairs of which the reader willremember that I broke off at the period when the Parliament had settledthat corn should not be imported, unless the price was above eightyshillings a quarter. Motions were now made to address the Prince Regent,to seize the favourable opportunity to procure from the allied Powerssome salutary regulations respecting the slave trade. The country, bothin and out of Parliament, was mad drunk with GLORY. The House manifestedits intoxication by a profligate and extravagant grant of the publicmoney to Wellington, who was also created a Duke. While this was goingon within the walls of Parliament, the farmers were drunk and madwithout, and were amusing themselves by burning and hanging Napoleon ineffigy. Deputies had already arrived in England, to invite Louis theEighteenth to return to France. He entered London on the 20th of April,with great pomp and state; he came from his retreat at Hartwell,attended by the Life Guards and many of the King's carriages, andaccompanied by our magnanimous conqueror, the Prince Regent. He took uphis residence at Grillon's hotel, in Albemarle-street, where be heldhis Court, and was congratulated by the Lord Mayor (Sir WilliamDomville), and the citizens of London, and also by many of the nobility,all of whom would no doubt have as readily paid their devoirs to amastiff dog, if he had been called a King. Louis left London in greatstate, to embark for France, on the 23d of April, and he set sail fromDover on the 24th, in the Royal yacht, and landed at Calais in fourhours. His public entry into Paris took place on the 3d of May, andon the 14th of the same month a grand farce, or funeral service, wasperformed in France for the Kings Louis the Sixteenth and Seventeenth,the Queen and the Princess Elizabeth. Louis was no sooner in possessionof power, than he discovered that the Constitution which had beenframed, and on his presumed acceptance of which he had been restored,was NOT PRACTICABLE, and that the people of France must submit toreceive as a boon, one of his own manufacture. "Put not your trust inPrinces." The Marshals had been brought over one by one, and peace wasat length settled upon the terms which the Allies dictated. By thistreaty France was to keep her ancient boundary, with some additions; thenavigation of the Rhine was to be free; the territory of Holland and theNetherlands were to be incorporated and governed by the Stadtholder;Germany was to form a federal Government; and Switzerland to beindependent.

While these things were going on in France, the Ministers were notinactive in England. They caused Lord Cochrane, and Colonel CochraneJohnson, his uncle, to be expelled the House of Commons, for what wascalled a conspiracy to defraud the Stock Exchange. To punish men fordefrauding, or rather playing off a hoax upon a set of swindlers andgamblers in the stocks, was curious enough! The Emperor of Russia andKing of Prussia arrived in London on the 7th of June, and the town wasilluminated. The Emperor of Russia took up his residence at the ImperialHotel, in Piccadilly, and the King of Prussia in St. James's Palace.They were received in state at Court, which was held at Carlton House,and the Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia were invested with theOrder of the Garter. All the Tom and Molly fools in the country wereflocking to London, to see these mighty Sovereigns; they spent theirmoney, and most of them returned disappointed, the fools having expectedto see something more than man in a King and an Emperor, and somethingmore than a brute in the dirty old animal Blucher. Nothing else but ournew visitors was talked of in town or country. Whatever company you wentinto, the first question was, "Well, what do you think of the EmperorAlexander? what do you think of Blucher? What! not seen the Emperor, andnot seen Marshal Blucher's whiskers?" To hear the females of England, myfair countrywomen, talk of shaking hands with this filthy old beast, andsome of them even boasted of his having kissed them, not only disgustedbut quite sickened me; and I must own that the scenes I have hearddescribed, which took place at Portsmouth, when they were all there atthe great naval fete, made such an unfavourable impression upon mymind, that I have always thought with the utmost contempt of those whoparticipated in these disgusting, revolting orgies. It was all verynatural that the time-serving, corrupt, vain, purse-proud Aldermen ofLondon should act as they did; it was very natural that they and theirwives and daughters should disgrace themselves as they did; but that mygood, handsome, wholesome country-women, should have suffered sucha disgusting monster as old Blucher to have slobbered them over andmouselled them with his dirty, stinking whiskers and mustachios, issomething so extraordinary and so abhorrent to the character of Englishwomen, or, in fact, of any modest woman, that I, as an Englishman, washorror-struck every time I heard the filthy accounts of it. Thank God,none of my family or connections ever disgraced themselves, even bygoing to see any of these German, Russian, Prussian, or Cossack animals.I had business in London, but I put it off, nay neglected it, becauseI would not make one of the throng of fools who flocked to grace thetriumph of these tyrants, who had been so long waging war against theliberties of mankind, and who had caused the shedding of oceans of humanblood, for the sole purpose of gratifying their own malignant desire, todestroy every vestige of liberty and rational freedom upon the face ofthe globe. During the whole time that these fiends in human form, theseenemies and destroyers of the human race, remained in England, I stayedat home; I never spoke of them but with abhorrence and disgust; and asmy family felt towards them as I did, they were seldom mentioned at all.I even, as much as possible, avoided having any company at my house,that their blood-stained names might never be introduced. I shall,perhaps, be told by some who read this, that I am inconsistent toexpress such a horror at blood-stained tyrants, and yet take everyopportunity of extolling Napoleon, who was as great a tyrant as any ofthose whom I condemn. To the unthinking, an explanation is certainlynecessary from me; for I fully concur in the opinion that CONSISTENCY isabsolutely necessary to form the character of a useful and honourablepublic man; that amongst the dangerous failings in a public character,_inconsistency_ is the most dangerous. A _vacillating, weathercock,changeable being_, in the common pursuits, in any pursuits of life, is,to say the least of him, a contemptible creature, one who is generallydespised by all classes; but a weathercock in politics, which is thesame as a weathercock in principle, is a being not only despicable butmost mischievous. To blow hot and to blow cold, in the same breath, orto maintain one opinion to-day and another opinion tomorrow, and thenext day to revert to the former opinion, is not so much a proof ofa weak head, as a sure proof of a profligate, an abandoned, and adishonest heart. I do not mean to say that a man cannot alter hisopinion without being dishonest; far from it; to maintain thisproposition would be to deny the possibility of improvement in thehuman understanding. But that man is to be dreaded and avoided, who canchange his principles, or desert his public duty, from private pique,or selfish, interested motives; such a man would sacrifice not only hisprinciples, but he would sacrifice his dearest friends, nay, a wholenation, to gratify his malignant and selfish passion for revenge; sucha passion springs wholly from cowardice; and as a coward is always themost cruel of mortals, such a man, from mere cowardice, is always themost revengeful and remorseless; and he would wade up to his knees inhuman blood to accomplish his private and selfish ends. Therefore, ofall the deadly sins with which public men are accused, oh! save me andprotect me, from the misfortune, from the indelible disgrace, of beingdeservedly pronounced AN INCONSISTENT CHARACTER! I have never praisedNapoleon, or at least I have never intended to eulogise him, as a friendof freedom. I have characterised him as a brave and noble-minded man;and the reason why I have been led away sometimes, perhaps, to be toogeneral in my praises and admiration of the man is, not because he wasnot a tyrant himself, but because I always found him more disposed totyrannize over _mighty tyrants_ than he was to crush the weak and theunprotected. Possibly all mankind are by nature tyrannical. Take, forinstance, the most humane, the most generous, the most sincere lover ofliberty, and one who has been the most steady practiser of it--to such aman even as this only give an unlimited, uncontrouled, and unrestrictedsway over his fellow-creatures, and ten to one but he becomes anarbitrary tyrant; when, on the other hand, if he had been restrainedwithin due bounds, by means of the proper checks and guards prescribedby a free constitution, he would have been one of freedom's brightestornaments, one of liberty's safest, staunchest, guardians andprotectors. So it was with Napoleon. If the tyrants of Europe hadsuffered him to remain First Consul of France, surrounded by such men asCarnot, to guard the liberties and rights of Frenchmen, and to controultheir ruler's actions, Napoleon possessed all the qualifications formaking a mild, liberal, and patriotic, as well as a brave and brilliantruler. But the despots and tyrants of Europe dreaded such an example;they dreaded the example of freedom which the then constitutionconferred upon the people of France. It was not Napoleon's politicalinfluence, great as it was, that excited their hatred, but they dreadedthe little remaining liberty that the French people possessed, and itwas their combined efforts, supported, maintained, and cherished, by thewealth of the people of England, that drove the French nation to submitto the hard and cruel necessity of placing unlimited authority in hishands, and consequently preparing the way for a great tyranny, andcompelling him to be a tyrant. My sincere and unchangeable opinion is,that few men ever lived, who, if they had been masters of the sameboundless power that Napoleon was, would not have made much more crueland more arbitrary tyrants than he ever did, and have exercised it morevindictively against the liberties of mankind than he did. My admirationof Napoleon has, therefore, been always by comparison, as contrastedwith the sanguinary and remorseless tyrants who were opposed to him; menwho had sworn eternal abhorrence of liberty, eternal war against it;men, who, at the time that they professed a hatred of the tyranny ofNapoleon, were themselves the greatest tyrants in the universe, andwhose sole aim in destroying Napoleon's power was to rivet the chains ofslavery upon the inhabitants of the whole civilized world, and whohave since sworn upon the altar of the Holy Alliance to maintain anindissoluble union, for the purpose of extinguishing every spark offreedom, wherever it may arise. Napoleon was the enemy, the successfulenemy of these tyrants; and under his sway, despotic as it mightapparently be, and governed by the excellent code of laws that bearsthe name of its author, the people of France enjoyed a tenfoldgreater portion of liberty than any of the people who lived under theprotection, or rather who groaned under the pretended forms of law andjustice exercised by the hypocritical tyrants who were opposed to him.All these tyrants had made war upon France, because the French had thespirit to overthrow the most execrable tyranny that ever cursed mankind;they made war against French liberty and French principles, beforeNapoleon was known; he was the child of fortune, who sprung up duringthe Revolution, and his talent and bravery pointed him out to the peopleof France as the most likely man successfully to oppose her enemies. Hewas elevated to unlimited power through the rancour and the malice ofthose who had sworn in their hearts to restore the hated Bourbons, thePope, the Devil, and the Inquisition. While he exercised that power hesubdued all those who resisted him, and his greatest fault, his greatestcrime, was his generosity to the Austrian, Russian, and Prussiandespots: having had those enemies to liberty and humanity in his power,it was a crime, an offence, in the eye of God and man, not to annihilatethem, and thus secure the human race from the continuance of theirarbitrary and brutal domination. Napoleon having conquered them all,restored them all to power, and when they got him into their clutches,the return whichthey made him was, to banish him, to linger out theremainder of his life upon a barren rock, in a noxious and pestilentialclimate, cut off from the society even of his wife and son. Peace to hismanes, for he beat, he humbled, and he subdued, the greatest of tyrants,and he was the author of the Napoleon code, which restrained the powerof infamous Judges, and established a real, instead of a mock trialby jury. These are the traits of Napoleon's character, which, as anEnglishman, I admire; had I been a Frenchman, I should have adored him.He is dead and gone, and John Gull is beginning to reap the bitterfruits that were sown to procure Napoleon's destruction. John is nowgrumbling, because he is called upon by the despots to pay the bill, todischarge the expenses which they incurred in dethroning and destroyingNAPOLEON, and restoring Louis to the throne of France. I hope and Ibelieve these is not a man in the world who hates and detests tyrantsand tyranny more than I do; yet I trust that I may, nevertheless, bepermitted to admire certain traits in the character of the brave andmurdered Napoleon, without being justly accused of inconsistency. If Iam asked whether I should like to live under such a tyrant and sucha tyranny as existed in France, during the latter days of Napoleon'sreign, I answer NO. But if I _must_ submit to a tyrant, let it be to onethat I can look up to, and whose superior qualities I can admire, ratherthan to a despicable wretch, who has not one noble quality, but, on thecontrary, is deserving of contempt, derision, and execration. I havebeen led into this digression by the recollection of hearing a verypretty little girl say, that she had been kissed by the filthy old beastBlucher, at Portsmouth, where the sceptered tyrants and their wholetrain had been to view the English fleet and the naval arsenal. Thisyoung lady, who was really a very pretty delicate girl, I had alwaysbefore considered as also a very amiable and a very modest girl; but,after hearing her boast of having been kissed by that dirty old animal,I could never look upon her but with pity, mingled with disgust.

On the 20th of June, peace was proclaimed in London. The country wasstill intoxicated, or rather insane, with the idea of the GLORY that hadbeen obtained by the downfall of one man, against whom all the despotsin Europe had been united, and all the wealth of nations had beensquandered during fourteen years. On the 25th, there was a naval reviewat Portsmouth, to amuse the Royal tyrants; and on the 27th they alldeparted for Dover, where they embarked on the 28th. On the 7th of July,a mockery or thanksgiving for peace was offered up in these churches,where the tocsin of war had for so many years been sounded by the piouspreachers of the Gospel, the servants of the meek and lowly Jesus. Onthis occasion the Prince Regent went in state to St. Paul's. On the 21sthe gave a superb fete to two thousand five hundred persons, and on the1st of August there was a pompous celebration, on account of the peace,held in Hyde and St. James's Parks, in the latter of which there was agrand display of fireworks; while, still further to amuse the _John_ and_Jenny Gulls_ of the cities of London and Westminster, there was a shamnaval engagement got up on the Serpentine River, representing a battlebetween the British and American fleets. Of course the British fleet wasvictorious, and the Americans struck their colours, amidst the huzzasand shouts of the family of the Gulls, who, having for nearly a quarterof a century been gulled out of their money to pay the expenses of asanguinary war, were now gulled out of an additional sum of their moneyto pay the expenses of a mock naval engagement with the Americans, whowere in reality beating the British navy out of their lakes and seas.This was the way in which the peace was celebrated, and at the same timethe jubilee to commemorate the accession of the House of Brunswick.It was a considerable drawback upon the pleasure to some of the Royalparty, that, at the drawing-room which was held at Court, to receive theRoyal visitors, the PRINCESS OF WALES WAS EXCLUDED; and as soon as therejoicings were concluded, her Royal Highness quitted England, andembarked from Worthing for the Continent.

All this time the old King was confined at Windsor Castle, in someapartments which were padded six feet high; in these, blind and mad, hewas suffered to wander about, a melancholy and disgusting object. It isconfidently affirmed, however, that he had frequent intervals of reason,in which he was perfectly sensible of his forlorn and wretched fate.During one of these lucid intervals it is said that one of the domesticsabout his person informed him of the abdication of Napoleon; upon whichhe put himself in a great passion, and swore "_it was a lie_." Thiswretched old man was reduced from the highest pinnacle of grandeur tothe most pitiable condition; none of his subjects were admitted tosee him for many years; even his children were excluded, except uponparticular occasions, and then they were admitted only in the presenceof certain individuals. The old Queen had the care of his person, and itis currently reported that she governed his gracious Majesty (it beingof course necessary to do so) with considerable harshness.

When one reflects upon the bloody reign of George the Third, and callsto mind the rivers of human gore that were shed during that reign; whenone looks back to the period of the American war, which was generallyunderstood to be a war of the King's, more than of his Ministers; whenone calls to recollection the commencement of the French war, which, ithas been asserted, was waged at his Majesty's particular instance, inopposition to the private opinion of Mr. Pitt; when one looks back onthe numerous sanguinary penal statutes that were passed during thisKing's reign, and the thousands of victims that fell a sacrifice tothem; when one contemplates the myriads upon myriads of brave Britonswhose lives were offered up as a sacrifice to these Moloch wars, itmay well and truly be called the UNFORTUNATE REIGN of King George theThird--which reign was concluded by the King himself being locked up,for many years, in his own castle, a solitary captive, suffering underthe complicated and melancholy visitation of _blindness_ and _madness_:and when one thinks of all this, one may, without being verysuperstitious, consider the catastrophe as an awful instance of theDivine vengeance levelled at the ruler of a sinful nation.

The story goes that a mouse had contracted a sort of friendly sympathyfor the hoary-headed, sightless Royal maniac, and paid him such frequentvisits, during his long captivity, that it was at length become quitetame, and would submit to be handled by the unfortunate shadow of agreat monarch. The King was very much delighted with this friendlylittle visitant, and its little antics and gambols assisted him to passaway many a wearisome, sorrowful hour. Unfortunately, the Queen cameinto the room one day, before the little trembling animal had time toescape to its hiding place. The Queen eyed it before it had yet leftthe King's hand, and when she quitted the apartment she ordered theattendant to take care and kill that "_nausty mose_," before she cameagain. The attendant ventured to state that the poor old King was soexceedingly partial to the mouse, and appeared so much entertained withit, that he was fearful his Majesty would miss it very much, and thatthe loss of it might make him unhappy. The answer was "_kill the naustymose_ before I come again!" It was as much as the servant's situationwas worth to disobey, and the poor little tame animal, too confidentof its former protection, was easily caught and killed! The King, ofcourse, soon missed the little solitary companion of his adversity,and for along time inquired the cause of its absence with the greatestearnestness; and when he found that it never came again, he grievedincessantly, more so than he did for any thing that happened to himduring his long and cruel captivity.

So goes the tale, and I, for one, believe it. What a subject this forreflection, what a picture of misery, what an awful monument of fallengreatness! If the King had those lucid intervals of reason which it issaid he had, his situation must have been, if possible, infinitely moredeplorable than that of the captive of St. Helena; it must have beena thousand times more hopeless than that of the latter; shut up andconfined for life in his own palace, by his own family, he must havesoon lost all hope: while Napoleon, till he found that his dissolutionwas approaching, must have always been cheered by the hope, arising fromten thousand chances which could not fail to present themselves to hismind, of his being at length relieved from his iron bondage.

George the Third was the only King I ever saw, and I never wish to seeanother King. The last time I saw him was when he was getting out of hiscarriage at the Star, at Andover, on his return from Weymouth; whichplace he never after visited. His eyesight was then nearly gone, and hisattendants were obliged to guide his feet, and to lead him like a childinto the Inn. I had known him in his prime, and had frequently huntedwith him. At the time when I saw him at Andover, he had indeed sadlyfallen off, and his signature to all documents was effected by a stamp,some one directing his hand. All Acts of Parliament, all Commissions,all Death-warrants, and all Pardons, were for a long time signed in thismanner. He who had signed more death-warrants than any mortal that everbreathed, and who could spare or kill human beings by the mere dash ofhis pen; alas! alas! he, once so powerful, could not now even save thelife of a poor mouse. He who, as a mere matter of course, and perhapswithout giving the subject a thought, had put his fiat on the blackscrolls which ordered hundreds upon hundreds of his fellow creatures tobe sent to their long homes, and executed in cold blood; he now grievedand lamented, and cried like a child, at the death of a mouse. I wouldhave had the Emperor Alexander, the King of Prussia, and all the RoyalVisitors, go down to Windsor, to be eye-witnesses of the "ills that(_Royal_) flesh is heir to:" they should have been reminded, by apersonal interview with this poor old maniac, to what a wretched stateit was possible even for the greatest monarch to be reduced, by the handof Providence. That all-wise and just Providence, the same Power thatpermitted the Emperor NAPOLEON to be sent a prisoner to St. Helena; thesame Power that permitted HENRY HUNT to remain a captive in IlchesterBastile, for TWO YEARS AND SIX MONTHS, commanded also that GEORGE THETHIRD should, after having LOST HIS SIGHT, and been DEPRIVED OF HISREASON, be confined as a solitary prisoner in his own palace, for manyof the latter years of his existence. The Lord's will be done!

During the whole time that these ridiculous freaks were going on inLondon, and that John Gull and his family were running stark mad withjoy and glory, each bellowing out, whenever or wherever you met him,have you not seen the Emperor? have you not seen the King? have you notseen Blucher with his whiskers? surely you have seen the Don Cossack?&c. &c. &c.; during this time I remained quietly and snugly at MiddletonCottage, occupied in fishing or looking after my farm, and mostsincerely lamenting the folly of my countrymen and countrywomen; andwhenever I had an opportunity, I did not fail to remonstrate with themon their ridiculous and preposterous conduct, and to assure them thatthe hour would come when they would be heartily ashamed of it, and wouldhave cause and leisure for bitter repentance. With many this time hasarrived, with others it is fast approaching. So far was I from evermaking one of the number of fools who ran after these sceptred despots,that, when some of them were travelling post by the house where I wasstaying, I retired into a _back room_, in order to avoid the possibilityof seeing them; always saying, when the question was put to me, that "Ithanked God I had seen _one King_, and was so well satisfied, that Inever wished to see another." A single sample was quite enough for me.One of my great political friends had expressed the same sort of disgustat the idea of running after these foreign Sovereigns, and he swore mostroundly and lustily, that none of his family should stir an inch to seethem. It turned out, however, that he did not keep his word--but whetherhis breach of it arose from "the grey mare being the better horse," orfrom his being himself overcome by a childish curiosity, I cannot tell;perhaps a little of both prevailed; at any rate I heard that my _friend_and all his family went to Portsmouth, to see the Royal sight, and geta squint at Blucher's whiskers and mustachios. My friend and his familyswelled the number of those who _suffered_ at Portsmouth--"ninny nanny,one fool makes many!" It was now all glory, all joy, and all seemingprosperity with John Gull, every thing was military! As a proof thatit could not well be otherwise, let us look to a return, which waspresented to the House of Commons, of the number of officers in theBritish army in the pay of John, which return was as follows: FieldMarshals, 5--Generals, 81--Lieutenant Generals, 157--Major Generals,221--Colonels, 152--Lieutenant-Colonels, 618--Majors, 612--Captains,2960--Lieutenants, 4725--Ensigns, 2522--amounting in the whole to theenormous number of TWELVE THOUSAND AND FIFTY-FOUR officers! What thinkyou of this, John Gull? Here is a larger army of officers than the wholenumber of military that was thought sufficient by our ancestors to bekept up during the time of peace. Yes, the officers alone, at the timeto which I allude, actually out-numbered the whole of what our peaceestablishment used to be.

One of the precious effects of the downfall of Napoleon was therestoration of the bigotted, despicable tyrant, Ferdinand the Seventh,to the throne of Spain; and one of his first acts was to restore thehellish Inquisition, with all its horrors, which had been abolishedduring the sway of the French, and which had also been suppressed by theCortes. The amiable Pope Pius the Seventh being restored to the see ofRome, he performed his part in the scene of mummery and tyranny, byissuing a Bull for the restoration of the order of the Jesuits. Soit will be clearly seen that the canting Boroughmongering ProtestantParliament of England, while it pertinaciously refused to grantemancipation to the Catholics in Ireland, contrived to restore the Pope,Popery, the Inquisition, the Jesuits, and every species of superstitionand intolerance upon the Continent!

About this time two fanatics, of the names of Johanna Southcote andHannah More, were much followed in the West of England. Somersetshirecould boast of possessing two female saints, _Mrs. Hannah More_ and_Mrs. Johanna Southcote_, at the same time; which of the two was thegreatest imposter it would be very difficult to decide, although theformer appears to have borne off the palm of successful fraud andimposition. Miss Hannah, who, in her younger days, had been a veryfrolicsome lass, became all at once converted into a saint, and set upfor a severe and rigid moralist; and she had the merit of establishingthe gang generally known by the title of the SAINTS, amongst ourpoliticians. In her train she had the Sidmouths, the Wilberforces,the Babingtons, the Dickensons, and others of that puritannical cast;although it has been whispered, but that, of course, must be a calumny,that, from the well-known character of some of these gentry, who werevery frequent in their visits, the buxom dame (who had now assumed thetitle of Mrs.) contrived, like the friars of old, to indulge in thegratification of those passions to which it is said real saints are notprone. Some of her neighbours were in consequence so ill-natured as tosay, that her conversion was not sincere, but that it was a mere cloakto cover certain practices. But my readers are aware that we must notbelieve _all_ that the world says. Mrs. Johanna was an illiterate woman,whose fanaticism was carried to full as high a pitch as that of Mrs.More; but as her doctrine did not suit "the powers that be" quite sowell as the doctrine of the other did, she could not boast of havingMinisters of State and many of the Nobility as her disciples, althoughamongst her numerous followers she did not want for men of talent andeducation. Dr. Ash, under whose care the VERY VENERABLE JUDGE BESTreceived his education, was a staunch disciple of Johanna's, and itis said the _venerable Judge_ himself at times discovered a littlehankering after the prophetess; but whether his attachment was to herperson or her principles, is not clearly decided.

During this period the British troops were carrying on a marauding,petty warfare in America, and on the 24th of August they burnt thenewly-built, half-finished city of Washington, and magnanimouslydestroyed the city printing-press, and threw the types into the streets,that they might be trampled under the horses feet. England being atpeace with all the rest of the world, the Government had nothing else todo but to direct its whole force against the Americans, both by sea andland, and I believe it was Mr. Charles Yorke, the First Lord of theAdmiralty, who put forth a speech in his place in Parliament, to thefollowing effect:--"That now Napoleon was deposed there was anotherexample of democratic revolution, and it was necessary to depose JamesMadison, the President of the United States of America." This speech washailed and cheered by a great number of the Members of the HonourableHouse, many of whom seemed to think that it was no very difficult matterto carry it into effect. But they reckoned without their host; for thenews having arrived of the total defeat of the British fleet, on LakeChamplain, matters began to wear a different aspect, and the boasterswere compelled to draw in their horns a little. Sir James Yeo had thecommand of the English fleet upon the Lakes, and Commodore Downie, inthe Confiance, of 38 guns, had the command of the British squadron uponLake Champlain, supported by Captain Pring, in the Linnet, of 16 guns;Lieutenant M'Ghee, in the Chub, of 11 guns; and Lieutenant Hix, inthe Finch, of 11 guns. Lieutenant Raynham and Lieutenant Dual had thecommand of twelve gun-boats. The American squadron was commanded byCommodore M'Donough, in the Saratoga, of 26 guns; Captain Harley, in theEagle, of 22 guns; and Captain----, in the Ticonderoga, of 18 guns,with 1 sloop, and 10 gun-boats. The English fleet had 90 guns and 12gun-boats; the American fleet had 83 guns and 10 gun-boats--so that theBritish fleet had the superiority in number of guns and weight of metal.The American fleet was anchored opposite an American battery, commandedby General M'Coomb, at the head of 800 men. The British troops, underthe command of Sir George Prevost, amounting to thirteen thousand men,were all drawn up on shore ready to take the battery, if the Englishfleet had succeeded in beating the Americans. It was communicated to SirGeorge Prevost that the English fleet would attack the Americans thatday. Commodore Downie called all his officers on board, and communicatedto each the order of battle, and his last words were, "Lieutenant M'Gheewill lead into action; let it be close quarters, MUZZLE to MUZZLE." Hedoubled a point of the American coast with a fair wind, and came in fullview of the enemy lying at anchor; the signal was then given to bear up,and commence the action. Mr. M'Ghee carried in the Chub, of 11 guns, andplaced her gallantly close alongside of the Eagle, of 22 guns, agreeableto orders, having sustained the fire of the gun-boats as he passed; heblazed away at the enemy and received their fire in return, till hehimself was wounded in three places, and every man out of his complementof sixty was either killed or wounded, with the exception of six. Infact, the Chub was made into a cullender, and completely disabled,before he struck her colours. The same fate attended the Confiance, theLinnet, and the Finch, the latter of which grounded on a reef of rocksabout the middle of the engagement. The gun-boats appear absolutely tohave run away. Thus was the British fleet captured by an inferiorfleet of the Americans. Commodore Downie was killed by a ball from theAmerican gun-boats very early in the contest, and the Confiance is saidto have struck her colours without coming fairly into action; the resultwas, the British fleet was lost, and the officers were tried by a CourtMartial. All the others were promoted, and the gallant Lieutenant M'Gheewas reprimanded for taking his ship prematurely into action. This isa pretty specimen of British justice in the naval department, and amelancholy example of the reward bestowed upon the gallant officers andmen who fought our battles and maintained the British character.

On the 1st of November was opened the Congress at Vienna, where LordCastlereagh, as the representative of the King of England, attended,and where it is generally believed he played second fiddle to PrinceMetternich.

In consequence of the peace, and the Bank of England having drawn ina considerable quantity of its paper, preparatory to the payment inspecie, which, as the law stood, they were compelled to at the end ofsix months after the peace had been proclaimed; in consequence of this,and there having been a good crop of wheat and a fair harvest, theaverage price of wheat during the year was seventy-four shillings perquarter, and the price of the quartern loaf was reduced to one shilling.Notwithstanding this, many riots took place in Nottinghamshire andLeicestershire, by the Luddites, who continued to set the laws atdefiance, and to break the frames in the most lawless and unwarrantablemanner. Their hostility was directed against all sorts of machinery, butparticularly against the looms and frames used for weaving and knittingin the stocking trade.

The supplies voted this year amounted to seventy-five millions sixhundred and twenty-four thousand five hundred and seventy-two pounds.By a return, it appeared that the amount of Bank of England notes incirculation was between twenty-eight and twenty-nine millions, and thatthe number of private banks was seven hundred and twenty-four.

The Parliament had met late in the fall of 1814, but little was doneof importance, except passing the address, and a Bill called "thePreservation of Peace Bill," to put down by force the disturbances inIreland. The state of Ireland had become very alarming, as the poorIrish were suffering the greatest privations from bad government andsevere laws; which laws were exercised with the greatest severity,to support an infamous tithe system and a national church, the mostprofligate, the most expensive and rapacious that ever existed; achurch in every respect hostile to the religion of four-fifths of theinhabitants, and a priesthood proud, overbearing, and intolerant.

In the higher circles it was now confidently given out that the PrincessCharlotte, the heir apparent to the throne of England, was to be marriedto the hereditary Prince of Orange; but the disposition of her RoyalHighness had been greatly soured by the infamous treatment of her poormother, and, conceiving that this said young Dutch upstart had not paidher mother proper respect and attention, but that he was more disposedto fawn and cringe to the will of her father, it is said that shedismissed him from her presence, and peremptorily refused to marry him.This drove her Royal Papa into a great passion, and our magnanimousPrince Regent went suddenly to Warwick House, the residence of hisdaughter, and discharged all her servants. She, however, proved herselfa legitimate Guelph, in obstinacy, at any rate; for she refused to seethe young Orange afterwards. This young lady had secured the affectionsof every honourable and unprejudiced person in the kingdom, by herundeviating attachment to her mother, and she gained the hearts ofthousands by her firm and undaunted opposition to the arbitrary mandatesof her father, with respect to that mother.

The Parliament met very early after the adjournment, and the first Actthey passed was to renew _the restriction of cash payments by the Bankof England;_ another violation of a positive pledge of the HonourableHouse, another gross breach of faith committed upon the people by acorrupt Parliament, which had solemnly declared by an act that the Bankshould be compelled to pay their notes in specie at the end of sixmonths after peace was made.

Accounts were now brought to England that Napoleon was reigning in fullsovereignty at Elba, and all the corrupt writers in the Ministerial anddaily press were sneering at the idea of his fancied sovereignty. But bythe solemn treaty of Paris, Napoleon was as much an Emperor as he everhad been as much a Sovereign as the Emperor of Russia; and, by the lawof nations, quite as much entitled to make war or peace with otherpowers as was the King of England, the King of France, or any otherSovereign. But these writers, as I have before said, were dailyridiculing his sovereignty, and holding his power in derision. But itwill be seen hereafter, that it is a very dangerous thing to treat withcontempt the hostility of an enemy, however weak that enemy may be. Inthe meantime Louis the Desired, the contemptible King of France, decreedthat the property of the Buonaparte family should be sequestred; the oldBourbon tyranny was making the most rapid strides; the press was muchmore enslaved than under the reign of Napoleon; disturbances had brokenout in many parts of France; yet such was the dreadful, enthralled stateof the press, that no one dared to mention them, nor were they everknown but by the proclamations of the King, to restrain and repressthem. The finances of France were, nevertheless, in a flourishing state;their trade was fast reviving, and every means that ingenuity coulddevise were resorted to, to induce the people to feel for royalty; and,amongst other things, a solemn funeral for the late King and Queen ofFrance took place, which was conducted with great pomp and ceremony.

In America, the English were routed at New Orleans, by General Jackson,who, with an undisciplined militia, and very inferior numbers, causedgreat slaughter amongst the British troops; in fact, the number killedin the English ranks amounted to more than the whole number of theAmerican troops, so expert were the riflemen, and so superior were theabilities of the American General Jackson. This was a death-blow to thehopes of the English, for the bravery of the Americans appeared to beinvincible; they were in truth fighting for Liberty, for themselves andtheir country, and not for any despot or any despotism. This fine spiritgained them a peace, which it may fairly be said they fought for, bledfor, and ultimately obtained by conquest; and James Madison remained,in spite of all the threats of deposing him, President of the only freepeople upon the habitable globe. Thus, as I hope and trust, have theysecured and placed upon an imperishable basis, the liberties and justrights of their people. They had a right to be proud of their success.England, at peace with all the rest of the world, carried on a war withAmerica; yet the latter, single-handed, not only met and contended with,but repelled the mighty power of her adversary, and by the equity of hercause, and the bravery of her citizens, she conquered a peace, in spiteof the threats of England's haughty, bullying, ignorant, and intolerantMinisters, who had declared that _the right of search_ was a _sine quanon_ which must form the basis of any negotiation. Ultimately, however,these very Ministers were glad to make peace with the Americans, bysaying nothing about the _sine qua non_, the _right of search_, forwhich they had gone to war. England went to war almost solely tomaintain the _right of search_; the Americans went to war to resist thatright; and England having made peace, and suffered the right of searchto be passed over in silence, the Americans have gained their object,and the English have lost the point which was the cause of the war.

On the 17th of January in this year, 1815, a Catholic meeting was heldin Dublin, at which it was determined to petition Parliament for anunqualified emancipation.

The price of wheat and all sorts of grain having been reduced, thegreat landholders had been for some time raising a cry, that the landedinterest was in danger, and that the farmers would be ruined unless somelaw was made to keep up the price of grain to the war standard, which,on an average, was from twelve to fifteen shillings a bushel. TheMinisters had been pressed hard by the great landholders, in both Housesof Parliament, to bring forward such a measure; but, knowing and feelingthe unpopularity to which it would expose them, they had, from timeto time, put them off, and they appeared to discountenance any suchproposition, whenever it was mentioned in the House. At length, however,the Ministers gave way to the urgent demands of the landholders,although apparently with great reluctance and considerable doubts. Inseveral districts the landholders urged the farmers and their tenantsto petition the House for a Corn Bill. Amongst the number of theselandholders, the most active and the most forward to promote suchpetitions in Wiltshire and the West of England, was Mr. John Benett,of Pyt-House, near Shaftesbury, the present Member for that county.Committees of both Houses of Parliament were appointed to inquire intothe state of agriculture, for the purpose of ascertaining what measuresit were necessary to take, or what Act to pass to keep up the price ofcorn, or rather to keep up the price of the quartern loaf to the warstandard. Mr. John Benett was one of the witnesses who volunteered to beexamined at great length before both of these Committees, that of theHouse of Lords as well as that of the House of Commons.

As soon as the evidence given before these Committees was published, Irode over to Botley, to my friend Cobbett, to urge him to take a _moredecided part_ against the measure; for I thought I discovered in hisRegister a leaning towards a Corn Bill, or rather the doctrine wasmaintained that it was necessary to protect the farmer as well as themerchants and other trades. When I arrived, I found him endeavouring, byarguments the most powerful, to shew the injustice of leaving the farmeropen to the competition of foreign growers, who could raise the grain athalf the expense which must be incurred by the native growers. Perhapsthis was said to ascertain my sentiments upon the subject, which Iimmediately, and in the most unequivocal manner, stated to be in directopposition to the measure. I argued against the injustice of makingthe mechanic and the labourer pay a war price for his bread in timeof peace, and I maintained that it was the duty of the farmer and thelandholder to petition for a reduction of taxation, so as to enablehim to compete with the foreign farmer, instead of petitioning for amonopoly by his exclusion. In five minutes my friend Cobbett was eitherconvinced of the propriety and justice of my remarks, or at any rate heprofessed to be so; and he concurred with me in the necessity of callingupon the public to come forward to oppose so injurious and ruinous ameasure as that which was contemplated. I pointed out to him the fallacyand the hypocrisy of those who pretended to be anxious for the good ofthe farmer, and we both very soon came to this conclusion, that a CornBill would be ultimately injurious to the farmer, and that the onlyresult of it would be, to raise the price of the _staff of life_, and togrind the face of the poor, to enable the farmer to continue to pay hightaxes, for the support of an unconstitutional large standing army inthe time of peace, and to enable the lazy sinecurist and the unmeritedpensioner to wallow in wealth and riot in luxury, drawn from the sweatof the poor man's labour. From this time forward Mr. Cobbett took themost decisive part in opposition to every movement of the Corn Billgentry.

Sir Henry Parnell, an Irish Member, ONE OF THE OPPOSITION, broughtforward the measure in the House of Commons, and I believe he wasChairman of the Committee. I will now put upon record a few questionsand answers, extracted from the evidence of the aforesaid John Benett,Esq. of Pyt-House, voluntarily given before the Committee of the Houseof Lords, in favour of a Corn Bill, which evidence was printed by orderof the Right Honourable House:

_The Evidence of_ JOHN BENETT, _Esq. of Pyt-House_, voluntarily _givenlefore the Committee of the House of Lords, in favour of the Corn Bill._

You hold a considerable quantity of land in your own hands?--I do.

What number of acres?--I believe upwards of 2000 acres, in variousparishes in the western part of Wiltshire, about twelve miles fromWarminster.--My residence is Pyt-House, in Wiltshire.

Have you any general information about the state of that quarter of thecountry, or can you speak only to the particular district in which youreside?--I can speak to the county of Wilts; for I am in the habit ofriding through it very often, and am in the habit of meeting with thefarmers in the county, from having been for some years a farmer, and amnow President of the Agricultural Society of that county. Can you givethe Committee any account of the increase and alterations that havetaken place in the value and prices of the different articles of producefrom land, and the expenses of cultivation, and from what period?--Ican speak to nearly twenty years. The price of wheat has varied sovery materially, it is more easily ascertained from the returns of themarkets than from recollection.

In the present state of the improved cultivation of those parts of thecounty of Wilts with which you are acquainted, can you state the variousprices which it will be necessary for the farmer to receive for thedifferent species of grain he rears, in order to remunerate him forhis expenses?--Taking the taxes, the price of labour, and all outgoingexpenses of the farmer as they now stand, and the rents at which landhas lately been let, I do not conceive the farmer can possibly raisewheat, and remunerate himself with ten per cent. interest upon hiscapital, under 12_s_. a bushel, or 96_s_. per quarter.

If the farmer was to receive only 75_s_. per quarter, would he becapable of paying any rent at all?--No, he certainly would not be ableto pay his rent, and get his ten per cent. upon his capital.

Is land generally let in Wiltshire upon the supposition that wheat willstand at 96_s_. and barley at half the price of wheat?--I believe thatlands have been let even at a higher calculation than that; I am in thehabit of valuing estates of my own as well as of others, and of givingopinions to my friends; and I have always calculated upon 12_s_. abushel, and I believe surveyors do the same; many of the estates let bysurvey let at a much greater calculation, or rather, I believe, withoutany.

Do you believe there is any surveyor who practises the surveying ofestates for the purpose of fixing rents, who proceeds on the calculationof wheat being at a higher price than 12_s_. per bushel, or 96_s_.a quarter?--I believe no estates have been let in Wiltshire, by ourfirst-rate surveyors, on a calculation of more than 12_s_. per bushel,or 96_s_. per quarter, for the last eight years, since the high price ofcorn and the competition for estates.

If wheat should be at 80_s_. and other grains at a proportionate price,do you believe the farmers would continue in the cultivation of theirland at the expense of the present mode of culture?--Certainly not; Ithink less wheat would be sown, and less money would be expended inthe cultivation of land. From your knowledge of the general ideas offarmers, do you believe that the same opinion you have expressed to theCommittee upon this subject is generally entertained?--With respect torenting farmers I believe the same opinion prevails with those who haveleases they cannot get rid of; but where they have not leases, or theirlandlords will permit them to surrender them, they are not under thesame alarm, because they will quit their farms altogether, unless theycan get a reduction in their rent in proportion to the price of corn;but no reduction of rent will answer as it stands now, it will exhaustthe whole rent.

Do you know of any farmers who have actually withdrawn their capitalfrom agriculture?--No, I do not; but a tenant of my own surrendered abeneficial agreement, of which there were seven years to come. I gave mytenants notice that I would not promise to sink their rents, but thatthey might surrender their leases altogether.

At what value of wheat did you compute the rent which the tenantpaid you under the lease, of which only one year has run?--I made noparticular computation for that; I have been in the habit of makingvaluations of my own farms; I have generally taken it at 12_s_.; I couldhave got more for this estate, it being a particularly valuable farm; Imade no particular calculation as to this farm. I have another tenant,whose term of seven years only has expired; I expected to have raisedhis rent nearly 400_l_. per annum, upon a rent of 870_l_.; I have notraised him a farthing; I dare not propose to raise him; I think he wouldquit me if I should attempt it; and I doubt my power of letting it, ifhe should quit me. I directed my surveyor to look over his farm, and letme know the price he thought I might put upon it, and if he thoughtit would bear raising, to let me know; and I have not heard from him,though he looked over it about two months ago.

How long had he possessed it at the rent of 870_l_.?--Only seven years.

At what rate did you calculate the value of wheat at that time?--At12_s_. a bushel.

At what would you have calculated the price of wheat if you had raisedit?--It is proper I should explain that; I did not in fact fix the rent;I agreed he should take it at the Commissioners' valuation, it beingthen just laid in under the act of inclosure.

Do you know whether the Commissioners fixed the rent, calculating wheatat 12_s_. a bushel?--I do not; but I told him at the time I consideredthe Commissioners' valuation would be a certain price; that if thevaluation was lower than the price, he should have it at the lower rate;the Commissioners' valuation exceeded my price, therefore he has it atthe price named by me, though I thought it too little.

Is it a farm which requires the application of much capital to render itproductive?--Yes, it does.

When you had in your own mind settled that you would get an advancedrent of 400_l_. a year, what did you take the price of wheat at informing that calculation?--I conceived wheat was higher than 12_s_.a bushel, not more than 13_s_. a bushel. I have not valued this farmparticularly at 400_l_. a year more, but I felt that the farm was worth400_l_. a year more than I had let it at.

You have said that at the time the Commissioners valued it, you believethey proceeded on the idea that wheat was worth 12_s_. a bushel?--No,I do not know what calculation the Commissioners made; they were threeeminent surveyors.

When it passed in your mind that you would get 400_l_. a year more, wasnot that in consequence of your having an opinion that the Commissionershad fixed the land at a lower rent than if wheat were calculated at12_s_. a bushel?--Certainly it was.

And your idea of getting 1270_l_. was in consequence of what passedin your mind as to wheats being fairly to be valued at 12_s_. abushel?--Certainly it was.

Having stated your knowledge to be general over the county of Wilts, andhaving stated your calculation of wheat to be at 12_s_. for the lastseven years, do you apply that to the farms within your own immediateknowledge, or over the county of Wilts generally?--I believe thatgenerally over the county of Wilts, 12_s_. is the lowest calculationwhich has been made by surveyors in letting land.

If a free importation should take place, how many rents do you think thefarmer will be able to make then?--It depends entirely upon what effectthe free importation may have upon the price of corn; taking wheat at8_s_. a bushel, and taking all agricultural expenses to stand as theynow do, I conceive the farmer with an average crop; cannot pay anyrent at all. You conceive a proprietor farming his own estate, with acompetent share of skill and capital, would be a loser if the price ofwheat was 8_s_. a bushel?--Yes, I do.

Has any proportion of the value of daily labour been made up to thelabourers out of the poor's rates?--Yes, it has; the weekly income ofevery family is made up to the gallon loaf and three-pence per head.Supposing the father to earn 9_s_. one of the children 3_s_. another2_s_. and another 1_s. od_. the magistrate conceiving they are able toearn that, or the overseer being willing to give them the money fortheir labour, whatever the deficiency is, is made up to the amount Ihave stated. I must explain, that I give this evidence as a magistratemore than as a farmer; for I act for a very large district, and am inthe habit of making this order. The gallon loaf per head per week iswhat we suppose sufficient for the maintenance of every person in thefamily for the week; and the 3_d_. is for clothes; and if the parishthink proper to find clothes, the 3_d_. is deducted. This practice goesthrough all the western parts of Wiltshire, and I believe throughout thecounty.

Have you, from your situation as a Magistrate, any connexion andknowledge of the condition of the lower class of manufacturers?--I have;I live within nine miles of a great number of them, and act for severalmanufacturing parishes as a Magistrate.

Can you state the average consumption of a family?--The manufacturerslive better than the farming labourers, but they need not live better;when they come to the parishes they have only the same allowance from usas paupers of every class.

Do you expect the labouring manufacturers will consume a greaterproportion of farm produce than they have hitherto done?--I conceivegreater waste will be made of farm produce when it is at a low pricethan when it is at a high price, and, in fact, they must consumemore: _they live upon wheat instead of barley; they lived upon barleyformerly, and now they live upon wheat, and eat fewer potatoesprobably_.

Do you think it would be possible for landlords to reduce their rents soas to enable the tenant to make a fair profit, according to the presentprice of corn?--No; I do not think it is in the power of landlords, itmust depend upon the riches of the landlord; but if he reduces the wholerent upon some farms, it would not be sufficient according to thepresent price of corn; taking the present price of wheat at eightshillings a bushel, and all other grain following the same scale.

The price is high abroad at present?--It is.

The case of a peace with America, and of our receiving corn fromthence, do not you conceive, in case of a great influx of corn from thecontinent, the price must fall considerably?--Certainly, as the pricefalls upon the continent, it will fall here, if free importation ispermitted; but I would wish to be understood here as to the price ofcorn, it must very much depend upon the crop of the year, because I donot believe it possible to import sufficient to feed the people of GreatBritain, and very much must depend upon the quantity of corn grown; andmy own belief is, that the price of corn will be very high indeed inthree years, higher than it has probably been known for the last tenyears. I think the importation is an uncertain sort of supply; there maybe a bad crop upon the continent, or a thousand interruptions may stopthe importation.

On what is your opinion founded, that it will be at a highprice?--_Because a great deal less wheat will be sown in consequence ofthe low prices; I believe the defalcation in the number of acres sownwill be very great indeed_.

Do you think that the present rents are the cause of the tenants notbeing able to obtain a fair profit, corn being at eight shillings abushel; or does it arise from the price of labour, the amount of poors'rates, taxes, and other expenses?--_I do not myself think the rents aretoo high, taking them at a general average; in fact, I do not think thegentlemen of landed property can now live at the present rents with thesame comforts their forefathers have done on the same estates; that ifthe rents are to be lowered, the gentlemen of landed property must besunk in their scale in society_.

Do you conceive that the existing rents bear a greater proportion to theproduce than formerly?--No; not so great by a great deal; I conceivethat rents have not risen in the same proportion that all the articlesof life, which we are compelled to have as country gentlemen, haverisen.

The following requisition was published in the Salisbury and WinchesterJournal, on the 2d of January, 1815, calling a public meeting ofthe landholders and farmers of the county of Wilts, to be held atWarminster, on the 6th day of January following:--

WE, the undersigned Land-Owners and Occupiers of Land, in the county ofWilts, conceiving it to be impossible that the British farmers shouldever contend on fair or equal terms with foreign growers of corn, evenin British markets, as long as the former shall have to bear such heavycharges of rates, taxes, assessments, and other expenses attendanton their cultivation, of which the latter know nothing: Being alsoconvinced that the farmers of this kingdom have already sufferedseverely, even to the ruin of many of those who have had small capitals;and also that the evil is fast approaching to the land-owners; and must(if no relief be given to the agriculturists) evidently fall on thecountry at large: Feeling it also to be a duty incumbent on as manyof us as are landlords, to exert ourselves for the protection of ourtenants, and on us all jointly to exert ourselves, for our mutualprotection:--Do hereby give Notice, That we intend to meet at the Lord'sArms Inn, at Warminster, in the county of Wilts, on Friday the 6th dayof January next, at 12 o'clock at noon, for the purpose of consideringof the propriety of preparing Petitions to the two Houses of Parliament,on behalf of ourselves and others; and we invite all Land-Owners, andOccupiers of Land, in the county of Wilts, who may wish to unite with usin forwarding this our object, to meet us on that day, and to co-operatewith us, in adopting such measures as may then and there be thoughtnecessary, for our mutual relief and preservation.

This was short notice, as many people of the county of Wilts did not getthe Salisbury paper till the 3d or 4th of January. In fact, I myself, whowas living in Hampshire, did not get it till the 4th in the evening, norshould I have seen it at all, if a friend had not sent it to me. AsI had a small freehold in the county of Wilts, and also occupied aconsiderable farm at Upavon, in that county, I made up my mind, withinfive minutes after I saw the above advertisement, that, although I wasliving at a distance of nearly forty miles from the scene of action, Iwould make one at this intended snug meeting. I mounted my gig the nextday (the 5th), and drove as far as Deptford Inn. I had heard of aMr. Gourley, who lived at Deptford, upon an estate of the Duke ofSomerset's; and, as he had acquired the character of being at least aneccentric, if not an independent man, I called at his house with theintent to have some conversation with him upon the proposed meeting.Fortunately, however, he was from home, or I might have been hamperedwith a very troublesome and a very disagreeable companion; for Iafterwards found that Mr. Gourley, though perhaps a very well-meaningperson, was so flighty, so confused, and so opinionated in his wild andvisionary notions, that he was a very dangerous man to have any thing todo with; at any rate, he was a person that it was impossible to go handin hand with. I slept at Deptford Inn, and proceeded through Heytesburyto Warminster in the morning, calling upon my old friend Cousens in myway thither; I knew that he was staunch to the back-bone, and that,in case he was at home, I should be sure of his support to second anyamendment that I might find it necessary to propose. When I drove up tohis door at Heytesbury, I was surprised to find all the window-shuttersclosed, although it was nearly ten o'clock. Upon hailing him, he poppedhis head out of the chamber window with a night-cap on, in one of theseverest hoar frosty mornings I ever beheld. I told him where I wasgoing, and he promised to follow me instantly, without fail; and he kepthis word, for he overtook me upon his grey poney before I reached thetown.

When I drove into Warminster, the town was as still and as quiet aspossible, without any of those bustling indications which I had beenaccustomed to witness at a public meeting. While I was taking mybreakfast at the Lord's Arms Inn, some of the requisitionists madetheir appearance, and they were soon followed by the remainder, and aconsiderable number of the landholders of the county, amongst whom, as Isat at an up-stair window, I recognised Mr. Wyndham, of Dinton, the HighSheriff; Paul Methuen, Esq. one of the Members for the county; and thesaid John Benett, surrounded by a few of the requisitionists. I satvery quiet while my friend Cousens reconnoitred their forces, andcommunicated their arrival. At length we saw them all proceed to theTown-hall, perhaps twenty-five or thirty of them at the outside--aspretty a little snug cabal as ever was mustered upon any occasion. Theypassed my window and went smirking along, little dreaming that theyshould meet with the slightest interruption or opposition to theirmeasures, which were all ready cut and dry, and safely deposited in thepocket of the celebrated attorney, Mr. Charles Bowles, of Shaftesbury.As the train passed up the street, the town's-people took little othernotice of them than by now and then _eyeing them askance_ with a jealouslook. I had remained the whole time snug in my room, without one soul ofthem knowing or suspecting that I was in Warminster; but, as soon as Isaw them all safely housed, out I bolted into the street, and made myway after them. As we walked up the street, my friend Cousens intimatedto two or three of the shopkeepers who I was, and the news flew likewildfire round the town, that Mr. Hunt was arrived, and gone up to theHall. As, therefore, something like fair discussion was likely to takeplace, the said meeting, which, ten minutes before, excited no interestwhatever amongst the town's-people, was, in a very short space of time,crowded by the shopkeepers, and attended by almost every respectable manin the town. When I entered the Hall it was very evident that I was nota very welcome guest, and that I had not been expected by any one. As,however, I was a landholder of the county, and one of those who wereinvited, it was impossible to make any objection, as I was as muchentitled to be present as any man in the room. Mr. Grove, whose namestood at the head of the requisition, was called to the chair. Thisgentleman, who is descended from one of the most ancient families inthe county, having shortly stated the object of the meeting, Mr. Benettarose, and, after some wriggling and twisting, addressed them. As thefollowing report, which was published in Keene's Bath Journal, on theSunday following, contains a brief outline and an impartial account ofthe proceedings, I will insert it verbatim, as it was afterwards copiedinto almost every newspaper in the kingdom:

On the 6th of January a Meeting of "Landholders and Occupiers of Land," was held at the Town-Hall, Warminster, convened by public advertisement, signed by John Benett, Esq. of Pyt-House, (the gentleman who gave such long and strong evidence before the Committees of both Houses of Parliament in favour of the Corn Bill), and several other respectable land-owners and farmers of the county of Wilts, to take into consideration the propriety of presenting Petitions to both Houses of Parliament, on behalf of the proprietors and occupiers of land. Thomas Grove, Esq. of Fern, one of the gentlemen who called the meeting, having taken the chair, Mr. Benett addressed them at a very considerable length in favour of a petition that he submitted for their adoption, expressive of the serious injury already sustained by the farmer, and the probable result likely to fall on the landholder, arising from the reduced and low price of corn, owing particularly to the importations from France, &c. The Petition further stated, that as the agricultural interest was blended with that of the tradesman and mechanic, the latter were invited to join in its support, and add their signatures thereto. Mr. Benett insisted that, as the evidence given before the Corn Committees had never been contradicted, the legislature were bound to afford the agricultural interest their protection; and, enforcing the necessity of Parliamentary interposition in favour of the landed interest, he said, that unless some measure were devised to enable the farmer to pay his present rent and taxes, the landholders would be completely ruined; and he solemnly declared, that, unless this desirable object was carried into immediate execution, he for one would be under the absolute necessity, before that day twelvemonth, of _leaving the country_ with his family, to reside where provisions and all the necessaries of life were to be obtained at a rate within the reach of his fortune.

[Footnote: Quere.--If this solemn asseveration of Mr. Benett's be correct, (who, by the bye, is a Land-owner to the amount of 10,000_l_. a year,) what will be the fate of those who are left behind, without the means of flying from the evil?]

The motion was briefly seconded by Mr. BOWLES.--Mr. HUNT began by stating his objection to the meeting altogether, asserting, that if the meeting was not illegal, it was highly improper for a few individuals of a particular class to call a meeting to petition Parliament in favour of _tradesmen and mechanics_, without giving them an opportunity of attending to decide upon its propriety. This was a close meeting of landholders and farmers; many respectable tradesmen, inhabitants of the town, would have attended, but they were told they had no business there, not being landholders or farmers. This meeting, therefore, bore a resemblance to a "Conclave of Cardinals with closed doors."--Instead of calling a meeting like this, why not call a public county meeting, and meet the question manfully and openly? One reason against this was, that at an open county meeting, even Mr. John Benett would not be so hardy as to bring forward a petition, the sole object of which was the keeping up the price of corn, under the cloak of its being a petition in favour of the tradesman and the mechanic.--

In fact, this was a petition especially to benefit the landholder; even the farmer was of secondary consideration, and it was decidedly hostile to the interest of every other class of society; and if acted upon would prove ruinous to the little tradesman, the mechanic, and the labourer. The landlord had met with no reverse since the commencement of the war; his rents had progressively increased, in proportion as the rest of the community had suffered privations; the nearer the mechanic and the labourer had approached to starvation and beggary, the higher were the profits and the more efficient the means of the landholder. This was no theoretical proposition, hastily introduced, it was a practical truism, the result of careful and recent inquiry. He would read to the meeting an account of the population of the parish of Enford, a large parish in the centre of the county of Wilts, with the comparative statement of the rise in the price of labour, the price of bread, and the price of land, within the last 30 years. The number of houses were 143, population 656, farmers, &c. 250, labourers 406, labourers (not paupers) 201, labourers (paupers) 205. About 30 years back, the labourers in this parish received 6_s_. per week; at this time they received 8_s_. per week--30 years back, the quartern loaf averaged about 5_d_. at this time it is 10-1/2_d_.--30 years back, the labourer could purchase with his week's pay, 6_s_. fourteen quartern loaves; now he can only purchase with his week's pay, 8_s_. nine quartern loaves--about 30 years back, the principal farm in this parish, then belonging to the late Mr. Benett, of Pyt-house, in this county, was let for 400_l_. a-year; at the present time this farm, the property of Mr. John Benett, of Pyt-house, is let for 1,260_l_. a-year. Thus it clearly appears in this parish, within the last 30 years, labour has risen from 6_s_. to 8_s_. per week, 33 per cent., the quartern loaf from 5_d_. to 10-1/2_d_., 105 per cent., the rent of land from 400_l_. to 1,260_l_., 212 per cent. This proves that bread has risen within this period more than three times as much as labour, and land more than twice as much as bread, and more than six times as much as labour. At the present price of land, corn, bread, and labour, the landlord is benefited three times as much as the farmer, and six times as much as the labourer. Mr. Benett said, that he had, since the period mentioned by Mr. Hunt, purchased the tithes, and added them to the farm, which was included in the present rent. Mr. Hunt replied, that he was perfectly aware of this circumstance, as well as of another circumstance equally important, which was this, that Mr. Benett bad taken a considerable portion of the best land from his farm, and added it to another, which produced a greater rent than the value of the tithes, therefore the balance was more in favour of the landlord than be had stated. He had mentioned this particular farm, as it belonged to Mr. Benett, the proposer of the present measure; but from his own knowledge (having an estate himself in the same parish) he could state, that the land had risen in the same, and, in some instances, in a higher proportion. He, therefore, particularly enjoined the farmers to pause before they gave their sanction to a measure, which had only for its object the benefit and aggrandizement of a few rapacious landholders, whilst it was calculated to shift the odium of a dear loaf off their own shoulders, and fix it upon the back of the farmer. Let the odium rest where it was due, upon those who were the supporters of the war, upon those who have fattened upon the miseries of the people.--Mr. Bleeck followed on the same side with Mr. Hunt, exposing the fallacy of attempting to palm upon the meeting a petition, professing to have for its object the welfare of the tradesman and the mechanic, whilst the operation of it would tend to perpetuate the misery they had so long endured; he called to the recollection of many of the meeting, the scenes which they had been in the habit of witnessing in that hall, the walls of which had so often resounded with the professions of those gentlemen who were now complaining of the present times, the effect of that war, to support which, they had so often solemnly pledged, not only their last guinea, but their last drop of blood. He called upon the Chairman not to blink the question, because the majority of the meeting appeared against the petition, but let it fairly meet its fate.--Paul Methuen, Esq., one of the representatives for the county, said, that seeing a meeting called, signed by a number of respectable individuals, he felt it his duty to attend it; but if he had known that it was to have been a close meeting with closed doors, he certainly would not have come near the place. If the meeting decided upon petitioning the House of Commons, whatever that petition may be, he should feel it his duty to present it; although he would not pledge himself to support the landed interest, to the injury of the tradesman and the mechanic. The Chairman having hinted that it was going a little too far, to say that this petition was in favour of the tradesman and mechanic, and as they would not have an opportunity of voting upon the subject, he thought they had better be left out of the petition. The whole meeting appeared to concur in this, and Mr. Benett proposed to draw the pen through the words "tradesman and mechanic;" which being done the Chairman desired all those who were for the petition to hold up their hats. The Chairman declared a decided majority kept their hats on; which was followed by a symptom of approbation, whereupon the Chairman asserted, that the meeting was so _tumultuous_, he would not take the sense of it against the petition. Upon this, the Chairman, with Mr. Benett and a few of his friends, retired to a private room at the inn, but whether to sign this petition in secret, which they could not carry in public, or to abandon it altogether, we do not know.-- A statement of the fate of the petition was announced to the inhabitants of the town by the bellman, amidst the becoming cheers of the populace.

I have no hesitation to say, that the publication of this report in_all_ the London newspapers, and in almost every country newspaper inthe three kingdoms, first roused a general feeling aginst the proposedCorn Bill. Meetings were afterwards called in London and in Westminster,and petitions were presented against the measure from almost every townand district throughout the country. Sir Francis Burdett attended themeeting of his constituents in Palace-yard, where they passed strongresolutions, and sent a petition to the House against the measure; butSir Francis took a different view of the question, and appeared to thinkit was necessary that the English farmer should be protected, and Ibelieve he said that he cared not whether the Bill was passed or not,and that it would make no difference to him personally whichever wayit was decided. This certainly was not viewing the question with thatliberality and sound judgment with which the Baronet was accustomedto act. For the moment, his speech threw a considerable damp upon theardour of a great many persons, who had before been very sanguineagainst the adoption of the said Corn Bill, and so completely were theaffections of the people riveted to the opinions of Sir Francis Burdett,that his constituents cheered him, and drew him home in his carriageafterwards, amidst the acclamations of the populace.

This was the first instance that I recollect, for many years, in which Iacted in opposition to the opinions of Sir F. Burdett; but, as I wasthoroughly convinced of the mischievous intention of the supportersof the measure, as well as of the fatal result that must follow itsadoption, I persevered in my opposition to it with all my power. I wasnot contented with having attended the Common Hall, as a Liveryman ofthe city of London, to protest against the Bill; I was not satisfiedwith having blown up the cabal at Warminster, and compelled the partiesto sneak off with their resolutions and petitions, to pass them andget them signed in holes and corners; but I personally procured arequisition to be signed by the freeholders of the county of Wilts, andpresented it to the High Sheriff for the county, my old school-fellow,William Wyndham, Esq. of Dinton, who was then residing at Marshwood,near that place, while his house was building at Dinton. The Sheriff wasjust upon the point of going out of office, and said the day was fixedfor him to meet the new Sheriff, at Salisbury, for the purpose of thelatter being sworn in. He, however, undertook to transmit my requisitionto him, and recommended that he should give notice of the meeting inthe first Salisbury paper after he had entered into his Sheriffalty.I ascertained that a Mr. GEORGE EYRE, the _King's printer_, of thehouse of _Strahan and Eyre_, printers in London, was to be the newSheriff, and, not choosing to trust to this mushroom gentleman, Iappointed to meet Mr. Wyndham at Salisbury, with the requisition, thatI might see the old and new Sheriff together; telling him, at thesame time, that I was determined not to be shuffled out of the countymeeting, for, in case the new Sheriff did not choose to call it, Ishould go to the expense of calling it myself; and in the proprietyof doing so Mr. Wyndham concurred with me. (My elder readers willrecollect, and it is necessary to inform my young friends, that therewas no law at that period to prevent my calling the county together, toconsult upon the propriety of petitioning the Parliament; at least asmany of them as chose to assemble for that purpose.)

I had drawn up a requisition, and procured a number of respectablesignatures, and if the Sheriff, by refusing to call the meeting, haddared to neglect his duty and abuse the high trust reposed in him by hisoffice, it was only necessary to advertise the requisition, and call themeeting in the name of the requisitionists. When the day arrived I waspunctual to my appointment, and met the two Sheriffs at the office oftheir Deputy, Mr. Attorney Tinney, who would as soon have seen thedevil as me; but, as he knew that I was not to be put off with anyof his usual quibbling tricks, upon demanding an interview with hisprincipals, I was admitted forthwith. I found this Mr. George Eyre justsuch a Jack-in-office as I should have expected a King's printer, or aKing's lacquey, or a King's hairdresser to be; as unlike Mr. Wyndham,both in appearance and manner, as a sneaking upstart could be unlike arespectable country gentleman. The latter was unassuming, free, easy,and gentleman-like, willing and anxious to do his duty in such a wayas was at once consistent with the character of his high office, andaccommodating to the requisitionists; whilst the former was jealous ofhis authority, and appeared only to consider how he could get over the_task_ which he had neither the courage to decline, nor the address tomanage with common urbanity. The day, however, was at length fixed, butat the greatest possible distance of time, evidently for the purpose offrustrating the object of those who signed the requisition, as in allprobability the Bill would be passed the House of Commons before the dayof meeting, or at least before the petition could be presented. In fact,both the Sheriff and his hopeful Deputy declared with a sneer, that thenecessity of holding the meeting might possibly be set aside, by theHouse of Commons passing the Bill. Old birds, however, are not to becaught with chaff, and therefore the requisition was drawn too generalto allow of practising a trick of this sort; it said not a word aboutthe House of Commons; it merely requested that a county meeting might becalled, to consider the propriety of petitioning PARLIAMENT against theproposed Corn Bill; and I sarcastically observed to these wiseacres,that it depended upon the feeling of the meeting, when we wereassembled, which branch of the Parliament we should petition, whetherKing, Lords, or Commons, and it would be quite time enough to considerthat point when we _were_ assembled. It always required considerableaddress and presence of mind to keep the upper hand of these legalquirk-dealers, these impudent under-strappers, whose whole tradeconsists in trick and chicane; but I do not recollect ever having beenoutwitted by any one of them as to the proceedings of a public meeting.

In the interval between the presenting of the requisition and the comingtogether of the meeting, there were great riots in London, each nightthat the measure was discussed in the House of Commons; great multitudeshad assembled about the House in a menacing manner; the military werecalled in, and the Bill was passed while the House was guarded with anarmed military force with bayonets fixed. Many of the Members of theHonourable House were hooted and hustled as they passed into the doors;and Mr. Garrow, the then Attorney-General, had rather a narrow escape.It is said that he was surrounded, and the mob were just upon the pointof claping a halter round his neck, supposing him to be one of theobnoxious individuals who had been pressing the Bill through the Housewith the most indecent haste, when some one in the crowd sung out witha loud voice that it was Garrow, the Attorney-General, who had notprosecuted any one for a political libel since he had been in office;upon which they gave him three cheers and let him pass.

The day for the meeting at length came. When we arrived at Salisbury,where the meeting was called, the news was brought down that the Billhad passed the House of Commons the night before; but we were not thrownoff our guard by this event, as we had in some measure anticipated it.It was, however, necessary to draw up fresh resolutions, and a petitionto the Lords instead of the Commons, which Mr. Cobbett and myselfhad scarcely time to half accomplish before a messenger entered out ofbreath, to say that the Sheriff and his party were gone to the Hall,whither they had proceeded the moment the clock struck twelve, insteadof waiting, as usual, till it was _one_; the county meetings havingalways been called at twelve, under an understanding that _one_ was thehour at which business was to be commenced. In another minute or two asecond messenger hurried to us, to say that the Sheriff had opened theproceedings, and the meeting would be instantly closed if we did notproceed to the spot with all possible expedition. In consequence ofthis, Mr. Cobbett and myself packed up our half-finished resolutions andhastened to the scene of action, yet still conceiving it impossible thatany thing assuming the character of a gentleman could be guilty of sucha mean, pitiful, and underhanded trick as that which we were told wouldbe played. Scarcely, however, had we reached the door of the Hall, whenwe met Mr. Sheriff, Mr. Deputy, and a pretty little knot of sycophantsand dependants, coming out; and Tinney informed us, that, as no one hadcome forward when the requisition was read, the Sheriff had dissolvedthe meeting. We expostulated against such an ungentlemanly like trick,but our expostulations would have been in vain if the tricksters hadhappened to have got without the door of the Hall; but, fortunately,we got into the entrance passage, and met them face to face, where ourarguments were supported by such an overwhelming power in the rear, thatthey were quite irresistible. The fact was, there happened to be _noback door_, and with a _little gentle force_ we conveyed, or ratherwriggled, these worthy men in office back again, step by step, and inchby inch, till the worthy Sheriff once more took the chair, amidst thedeafening shouts of the largest county meeting that I ever witnessed. Totell the truth, they found it impossible to get out of the Hall, and atlength, after having made as many shifts and feints and shuffles as anold fox would to avoid the well-trained, true-bred pack, and findingthat we neither yielded to coaxing, bullying, nor wheedling, theyultimately made a virtue of necessity, and the high-bred High Sheriffturned-to very kindly, and once more opened the proceedings of themeeting, by reading the requisition. I then moved an adjournment intothe open air, and two carpenters' benches (the very best temporaryhustings) being at hand, the business went on and passed off in a mostregular and satisfactory manner. After I had moved and Mr. Cobbett hadseconded the resolutions, and a petition to the House of Lords, prayingthat they would protect us from the rapacity of the Commons, and notpass the Corn Bill, and after an amendment had been proposed by theReverend Mr. Hill, supported by Mr. Gourley, our resolutions andpetition, which also prayed for a Reform of the House of Commons, areduction of all useless places, and an abolition of all unmeritedpensions and sinecure places, were carried unanimously, or at least withonly a few, very few dissenting voices. Sheets of parchment and pens andink were provided, and the people began to sign their names instantly.Mr. Cobbett returned to his home, while I sent messengers or went myselfinto every town in the county, and collected signatures, which amounted,at the end of four days, to TWENTY-ONE THOUSAND, and were forwarded withthe petition to Lord Stanhope, who presented it on the second reading ofthe Bill in the House of Lords. I reckoned that it cost me upwards offifty pounds, out of my own pocket, to accomplish this county meetingand petition; no one soul but myself having contributed a singlesixpence towards the expense.

About the time that the populace in London were committing greatexcesses, by breaking the windows of those Members of Parliament whotook a prominent part in favour of the Corn Bill, Lord Cochrane, who wasconfined in the King's Bench prison, in consequence of a verdict given,or at least _procured_, against him, for the part it was pretended hehad in the Stock Exchange hoax, made his escape from that prison, acircumstance which caused a very considerable sensation throughout themetropolis and the country; for it was rumoured that his Lordship hadmade his escape with the intention of placing him self at the head ofthe London rioters, who had by this time increased in numbers and daringresistance to the authorities. In descending by a rope from the top ofthe wall, his Lordship fell from a very considerable height, and injuredhimself severely, so much so, that he was for a great length oftime unable to raise himself from the earth. His Lordship remainedundiscovered for some weeks, and then appeared in his place inParliament, where he was discovered sitting upon one of the benches ofthe House of Commons, and from thence he was taken by the civil power,and delivered once more into the custody of the Marshal of the King'sBench prison. Let the reader bear in mind what I have already mentioned,that the Parliament of England was obliged to be aided by the military;that Westminster Hall and both Houses of Parliament were encircled bytroops, and all the avenues leading thereto were guarded by soldierswith their bayonets fixed, and that thus this law, this infamous CornBill, to enhance and keep up the price of bread, the staff of life, waspassed under the protection of a military force, in defiance of theprayers, the petitions, and the remonstrances of a great majority of thepeople of England; a fact which clearly demonstrated that the Houseof Commons, where the Bill originated, were so far from being therepresentatives of the people, that they acted in direct hostility tothem, and had no feeling in common with them, but were more like a bandof venal, corrupt, profligate, dishonest, and merciless oppressors.

The landed gentry in other parts had now began to shew a dispositionto shake off the income tax, called the property tax, which was anarbitrary and inquisitorial war tax, and ought to have been abolished assoon as peace was proclaimed. As, however, the Ministers were evidentlynot in the least disposed to give up fourteen millions a-year, whichthis horrid imposition produced, many meetings were held and petitionsagreed to, praying for its being abolished. Amongst the number arequisition was signed and presented to the Sheriff of Somerset, GeorgeEdward Allen, Esq. of Bathhampton, requesting him to call a publicmeeting to take the subject into consideration, and he immediatelyadvertised a meeting of the freeholders and inhabitants of the county,to be held at Wells. At the head of this requisition was Mr. Hanning,of Dillington. I saw the advertisement in the public papers, and as itappeared that the parties calling the meeting only intended to petitionfor a partial repeal of the tax, as far as it affected themselves, whilethey left the most odious and obnoxious half of it untouched, I meanthat part which affected the small annuitant and fundholder, the widowand the orphan, whose income was under one hundred pounds a-year, Idirectly made up my mind to attend the meeting. As a preliminary step,therefore, I wrote a letter to the freeholders and inhabitants of thecounty, calling upon them to come to the meeting, and to support me inthe endeavour to frustrate such a partial proceeding. In case of theirbeing disposed to petition the Parliament, I urged them to support me inpetitioning for an absolute repeal of the _whole tax_. This letter waspublished in one or two of the county newspapers, and I also printed andcaused to be circulated five hundred copies of it in hand-bills.

When the day came, I had to drive from Middleton Cottage in the morning,a distance of fifty miles, and I reached Wells a little after oneo'clock, the meeting having been advertised to commence at that hour.The news flew through the city like wildfire, and as I drove through thestreets in my tandem I was hailed by the acclamations of the people. Ihad not been five minutes in the inn, before I received a polite messagefrom the High Sheriff, Mr. Allen, to say that he had delayed opening themeeting till my arrival, and he would not go to the hustings till Iwas ready to attend. Here was a contrast to the conduct of the paltryupstart of the county of Wilts! As soon as the clock struck one Mr.Allen was urged, by Mr. Perpetual Under-Sheriff and his associates, someof the attending Magistrates, to proceed to the hustings, and toopen the proceedings forthwith. With this suggestion he, however,peremptorily refused to comply, saying, "as Mr. Hunt has publisheda letter in the public newspapers, to say that he should attend themeeting, and propose some amendment to the petition which is meant to besubmitted to the meeting by those who signed the requisition, I havenot the slightest doubt but he will keep his word; and as he lives at agreat distance, I should not be doing my duty conscientiously if I didnot wait half an hour, to make allowance for the difference of clocks,or any accidental delay that may have arisen in so long a journey."

As he had anticipated, I arrived within ten minutes of the time; and inanswer to his polite message I returned another, thanking him forhis attention, and promising not to detain him five minutes. In themeanwhile I had a message from Mr. Hanning and the other gentlemenwho signed the requisition, to say that, previous to our going to thehustings, they wished to consult with me upon the propriety of theresolutions, &c. that they meant to submit to the meeting. My answerwas, "give my compliments to the gentlemen, and say that I am at theSwan, where I shall be happy to confer with them if they wish it." Inthree minutes, before I could scarcely wash my hands and face after myjourney, they entered my room. They began by saying that they had seenmy letter in the public papers, and as they by no means wished to acthostilely to me, or to create any division at the meeting, they had noobjection to adopt my resolutions and petition, which prayed for thetotal repeal of the Property Tax, instead of those which they had drawnup, which only went to the partial repeal of it. I saw by this that theyhad fully ascertained what was the real public feeling, and that theywere not willing to brave it at the meeting. I begged to see theirresolutions and petition, adding, that I by no means wished to take itout of their hands; and to skew them that I wished to meet them uponliberal terms, I proposed the embodying one of my resolutions amongtheirs, and a corresponding clause in their petion. As these additionsfully recognised the principle for which I contended, I was desirous toskew the requisitionists that I did not wish to take any advantage ofthe popularity that I possessed, and I therefore agreed that Mr. Hanningshould propose his resolutions and petition, thus altered and amended,and that I would then give him my hearty concurrence and support.

My proposition being readily accepted, and hailed as an emblem of union,we proceeded to the hustings together, and every thing went off withthe greatest unanimity and cordiality amongst all the parties, with theexception of a discussion that took place upon a bye resolution, which Iproposed, of a vote of thanks to the Ministers, for having concluded a"peace with the Americans, the only remaining free Government in theuniverse." I meant this resolution to answer a double purpose; first, bythanking the Ministers, I gave the Whigs a kick; and second, it wasa compliment due to the Americans, for having bravely repelled atyrannical invader. It was a Whig meeting, at least it was called by theWhigs, and therefore every exertion was made to prevent the passing ofthis resolution. Old Sir John Cox Hippisley palavered, and whined, andbegged and prayed, for an hour, and endeavoured to wheedle and coaxme to withdraw my motion for the sake of unanimity. Upon all publicmatters, however, I was ever inflexible, and I was therefore prepared atall times to do my duty without looking to the right or to the left, andI consequently insisted upon having the motion put to the meeting. On adivision it was lost by only a very small majority.

In the month of January, 1815, a treaty was concluded between the AlliedPowers at Vienna, to maintain the treaty of Paris. In the Congress,by which this treaty was settled, the Ministers of some of the AlliedPowers seriously proposed to seize Napoleon at Elba, to carry him off byforce from that island, and to convey him to St. Helena; and this basescheme was to be executed in violation of the solemn compact enteredinto with him; a compact granting to him the island of Elba in fullsovereignty! But it is quite clear that there are no treaties, howeversolemn; no engagements, however binding; no obligations, however sacred,that tyrants will not violate, and laugh to scorn, when it suits theirpurpose so to do.

The treaty of Vienna was entered into upon the 25th of January, and itis supposed, and I believe pretty well understood, that this diabolicalplot against the life and liberty of Napoleon was privately communicatedto him, by some friend that he had amongst the diplomatists of theAllied Sovereigns. Napoleon, therefore, took the resolution of leavingElba as soon as possible, and returning to France, to endeavour toreconquer that crown which had been forced from him by the very samedespots whom he had more than once restored to liberty and power afterhe had subdued them.

Having deliberately made up his mind to risk the attempt, Napoleonpromptly carried it into execution. He set sail from Elba on the 26th ofFebruary, with about one thousand brave followers, in four vessels. AnEnglish frigate pretended to chase them, but he landed his little forceat Frejus, in France, on the 1_st of March_, 1815, and he was soonjoined by various bodies of the army, who flew to the ranks of their oldcommander, who had bravely led them into a thousand battles, and withwhom they had participated in a thousand victories over the enemiesof their country. Though at the outset his force was not more than athousand strong, he marched boldly forward in a direct line for Paris,and his numbers continued to swell as he advanced. France was in a stateof the greatest agitation, and of hopes and fears for his safety and hissuccess. He arrived at Gasson the 5th, the next day he crossed the UpperAlps, passed on through Grenoble, reached Burgoin on the 10th, and onthe 11th he entered the City of Lyons, the second city of the Frenchempire, where he was received with every demonstration of respect andattachment. The army and the people vied with each other which shouldevince the greatest enthusiasm; from Lyons he issued a Proclamation,annulling all that had been done in his absence. On the following day hemarched on, and reached Autun; on the 16th he entered Auxerre; on the17th he halted at Fontainbleau; and made his entrance into Paris intriumph on the TWENTIETH OF MARCH. There he was hailed with enthusiasticdelight; and, amidst the deafening acclamations of the Parisians, heentered the Palace of the Thuilleries, from whence Louis the Desired hadfled but a few hours before, with the utmost precipitation and dismay.Napoleon could have arrested his flight, and brought him back as aprisoner without the least difficulty, but he was too brave even totread upon so fallen a creature. At a subsequent period the Duked'Angouleme also fell into the hands of one of his Generals, but themoment Napoleon heard of it, he ordered him to be set at liberty to gowhere he pleased. But, as it turned out afterwards, this proved a fatallenity. On the day that Napoleon entered Paris, the following noticeswere placarded by the people on the walls of the Thuilleries and theneighbourhood. "A Palace to be let well furnished, except kitchenutensils, which have been carried away by the late proprietor." "A largefat hog to be sold for one Napoleon," &c. &c. These things evidentlyshewed with what feelings of utter contempt the Bourbons were regardedby the Parisians. Napoleon, as I have already stated, was informed thatLouis had only quitted Paris a few hours previously, and that it wouldbe very easy to overtake him and his cavalcade, and bring them backprisoners to Paris; but this he positively forbade, adding, that he hadno wish to touch a hair of his head. Thus was Napoleon placed upon thethrone of France, restored to all his former power of sovereignty inthat country without one life being lost, one single shot being fired.If ever there was a legitimate monarch, Napoleon was now that man; forhe was voluntarily elected and placed upon the throne by the unitedvoice of the whole people. The cause of the Bourbons became sodesperate, that not the slightest hope remained for them, except whatcould arise from resorting to the aid of foreign arms to restorethe King to the throne from which he had fled with the greatestprecipitancy, without having made the slightest resistance. In fact thewhole people were by this time completely sick of the Bourbons. TheDespots of Europe, meanwhile, were in the greatest alarm, but they soonentered into a league to make war upon France to restore the old tyrannyof the Bourbons, and they instantly began to prepare to carry theirproject into effect. Buonaparte offered peace to the combination ofSovereigns, but he did not neglect to prepare his troops for anyemergency that might happen.

When the news arrived in England that Napoleon had quitted Elba, andlanded at Provence, in France, it was with the greatest difficulty thatJohn Gull could be made to believe that it was true, till the dailyaccounts arrived of his steady march towards Paris. As he approachedthat capital the most intense interest was excited, not only in Franceand England, but all over the civilised world. In England nothing elsewas talked of or thought of. I own I never before felt so much anxiety;and the desire to see the newspapers, which furnished an account of thedaily progress which he made, became every hour more and more acute. Atlength, the official intelligence arrived, that Napoleon had enteredParis, and that he was peaceably restored to the throne amidst theshouts and applause of the whole French nation. I had been from homeupon business the whole day, and I had heard of this happy event, andwhen I returned in the evening I was much gratified to find that myfamily had anticipated my wishes, had procured candles, and werepreparing to ILLUMINATE MY HOUSE. I had said, in the beginning of March,when the information reached England, that Napoleon had landed inFrance, that I would illuminate my house if ever he reached Paris alive.Although some doubts were expressed at the time by my family, as to theprudence of such a course, yet, as I declared my determination to do sowhen the time arrived, there was no hesitating, no desire to baulkmy intentions, or to disappoint my wishes, which, having been onceseriously expressed, were quite sure to be accomplished in my family; sothat, if I had not returned home that night, my house would neverthelesshave been illuminated. The candles were all fixed, and every pane ofglass could boast a light. The moment it was dark, MIDDLETON COTTAGE WASILLUMINATED from top to bottom. This was the only occasion, this was thefirst time in my life, that ever any house of mine had been illuminated.

Middleton Cottage is situated on the south side of the great WesternRoad, leading from London to Exeter, sixty-one miles from London, andthree miles from Andover. The Exeter and the Auxiliary Mail, and threeor four other coaches, pass towards London between seven o'clock in theevening and twelve o'clock at night. Every one of the coachmen pulledup their horses, and stopped to inquire the occasion of this blaze oflight. The passengers in the first coach also inquired of the coachmanwhose house it was, and what was the cause of this splendid display?Some one said, he supposed it was in consequence of peace with America,which had just been announced.--"No, no;" said the coachman, "it ison account of the restoration of Buonaparte." "O, a vile Jacobin!"exclaimed a nondescript with a whistling, piping voice, "I wish somebodywould break all his windows." The coachman cracked his whip, and canthey passed; but as there was the mail, and four other coaches to pass,I sent my servant out to stand at the gate, to inform those that mightinquire, that my house was illuminated in consequence of the saferestoration of Napoleon to the throne of France. The next coach thatcame was the mail; it was going very fast, being rather down the hill;and, as the glare came suddenly upon them, the coachman had somedifficulty in pulling up his horses till they got rather beyond thefront of the cottage. I was just coming out of the garden, and as itwas dark, I heard, unseen, but very distinctly, the following dialogue:"Aye, aye, coachman, stop, by G-d! tell me whose house this is?"--"Itis Middleton Cottage, Sir, the residence of Mr. Hunt." "I suppose it isilluminated for the return of Napoleon?"--"Yes, Sir," said my servant,apparently to save farther trouble of inquiry, "my master illuminateshis house for the first time in his life, because Buonaparte hasascended the throne, and reconquered the crown of France, withoutbloodshed." With some tremendous oath, two of them (who it turned outwere gemmen of the army) swore that they would get out and smash everyone of the windows, and they immediately began to open the door of thecoach, to put their threat into execution. Upon hearing this, I lostnot a moment's time, but darted in doors, and having seized a faithfulcudgel, I sallied out, with the determination of taking prisoner thefirst man that threw a stone, and, at all hazards, conducting him intomy parlour, where he should have drank long life and success to Napoleonupon his knees, before he should have been liberated. This was theresolution I formed while I was hastening after my cudgel, and havingonce formed that resolution, I would have carried it into effect at therisk of my life. When I got out the coast was clear, and the mail wasgot nearly out of hearing. My servant informed me, that as soon as theguard saw what was going on, he jumped down from his seat, and warmlyexpostulated with the military heroes upon their folly and rashness;but when he saw that they persevered, he swore that the coachman shoulddrive on and leave them behind if they got out; and he added, that hehad no doubt but Mr. Hunt would blow both their brains out with hisdouble-barrelled gun, if they offered to touch one pane of his windows.To this the coachman assented, exclaiming, at the same time, "By G--dit would serve them right for their pains." This being the case, thedoughty heroes thought proper to sit still, but muttered out, "d----djacobin," as the coachman drove off. These worthies, I have no doubt,communicated this circumstance at head-quarters, and some of my worthyneighbours, of the rotten-borough of Andover, kindly conveyed the factto several editors of the London newspapers. The editors, however, tookgood care not to mention a word of it in their papers, but it was verycurrently talked of in the coffee-houses of Paris. I know thousands ofEnglishmen that rejoiced at the escape of Napoleon from Elba, and at hisreturn to the French capital, but I know of no one except myself who hadthe courage to testify his joy by any open demonstration.

As soon as the news of Buonaparte's landing in France arrived inEngland, the Prince Regent sent a message to both Houses of Parliament,declaring his intention to join the Allies, and corresponding addresseswere voted accordingly. A public meeting was called by the electors ofWestminster, to take into consideration a petition to be presentedto Parliament, against renewing the war for the purpose of forcing aruler upon the people of France. I was in London when this meeting washeld in Palace-yard; I attended it, and I spoke there, for the firsttime, in support of this petition. What I said was so favourablyreceived by the people, that they passed an unanimous vote of thanks tome, and drew me in my carriage to my inn, the British Coffee-house, theyhaving spontaneously taken off the horses. When I got there I mountedthe roof of the carriage, briefly thanked the multitude, and requestedthem to retire peaceably, which they did without delay. The petition waspresented by Sir Francis Burdett, and, I think, on the same evening. Itwas a strong remonstrance against plunging once more into a war with theFrench, merely to restore the Bourbons to that throne which they had notthe talent or the virtue to fill, either with honour to themselves orwith advantage to the people.

The Parliament now, almost by acclamation, voted that the propertytax should be continued for one year. The treaties made with Holland,Russia, and Sweden, were laid before both the Houses of Parliament, andapproved of. The Minister likewise proposed new taxes, to the amount of3,728,000_l_. per annum.

While the British legislators were thus honourably employed, the allieddespots collected their forces in two great bodies, under MarshalBlucher and Wellington, the latter of whom had been created a Duke.Napoleon on his side was busily engaged, both in civil and militaryaffairs. He laid before the Senate of France a new constitution, whichwas accepted, and a meeting, called the "_Champ de Mai_," was held atParis, on the 1st of May, to swear to that constitution. On the 1st ofJune there was a revolution at Martinico, in favour of Napoleon, but itwas soon suppressed by the British troops. On the 8th, a confederation,or rather a conspiracy of tyrants and their agents, was signed atVienna, called the "_Holy Alliance_." On the 12th, Napoleon left Paris,to join his army on the Belgian frontier. The Prussian army, underBlucher, was attacked at Ligny, and totally defeated by Napoleon on the15th, and on the following day he attacked the Dutch and the Englishunder Wellington, and compelled them to fall back from Quatre Bas, atwhich place they were posted. The combined English, Dutch, Belgian, andHanoverian forces were concentrated, on the 17th, under Wellington, atWaterloo. On the _eighteenth_, Napoleon, with sixty-eight thousand men,attacked the combined army commanded by Wellington, consisting of ninetythousand troops. A dreadful slaughter ensued, and Wellington was hardlypressed by his illustrious opponent. This success on the side ofNapoleon continued till four o'clock, at which time he considered thebattle as won, when two Prussian corps, one of thirty thousand and theother of forty thousand, under Bulow and Blucher, unexpectedly arrivedand turned the right wing of the French. The whole army was thrown intoconfusion from this unexpected reinforcement to their enemies, and athalf-past nine they fled in all directions. The arrival of these twocorps was occasioned by some strange misconduct, or something worse, onthe part of Marshal Grouchy, who was dispatched by Napoleon to attackthese corps with a division of the French army, but by some strangefatality he suffered them to approach the right wing of Napoleon's armyunmolested. This and this alone caused the defeat of Napoleon, as thesecorps of themselves were more numerous than the whole of the troopsunder his command, harassed and fatigued too as they were at the latterend of a dreadful battle. "Never did the French army fight better thanit did upon this occasion; it performed prodigies of valour; and thesuperiority of the troops, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, over theenemy opposed to them, was such, that had not Blucher arrived with hissecond corps of Prussians, the victory over the Anglo-Belgian army underWellington would have been complete, though aided by Bulow's thirtythousand troops; that is to say, it would have been gained by sixty-ninethousand men opposed to nearly double their number; for the troops inthe field commanded by Wellington, before Blucher's arrival, amounted toone hundred and twenty thousand men." The Allies, by their own account,lost sixty thousand men, viz. eleven thousand three hundred English,three thousand five hundred Hanoverians, eight thousand Belgians, andthirty-eight thousand Prussians. This makes a general total of _sixtythousand eight hundred men_. The losses of the French, including thosesustained during the rout, and till their arrival at the gates of Paris,was _forty-one thousand men_. Out of twenty-four English Generals,twelve were killed or badly wounded. The mind quite sickens at therecital of such a horrid slaughter of human beings, for the sole purposeof gratifying the malignant passions of a few tyrants, who had sworn toannihilate the very spirit as well as the substance of liberty. Todestroy NAPOLEON, and to raise up Louis, ONE HUNDRED AND TEN THOUSANDlives were sacrificed upon this occasion!

Napoleon repaired to Paris, where he found that traitors of the vilestcast had been at work. The Chambers were in a state of insurrection,and on the 22d of June, 1815, Napoleon resigned the government to aprovisional Council. On the 3d of July a suspension of hostilities wassigned at St. Cloud, and on the same day Buonaparte arrived at Rochfort,while Paris was evacuated by the French troops and occupied by theallied army. By the articles of capitulation, on which Paris wassurrendered, a complete _indemnity_ was secured to _all_ persons. Weshall soon see how they were fulfilled. On the 5th, the troops underGeneral Oudinot declared for Louis; and on the 8th, Louis the Desiredreturned once more to Paris, and resumed the government under theprotection of a foreign army. On the 15th, Napoleon took the fatalresolution of throwing himself upon the protection of the BritishGovernment. Relying upon the honour of the English character, hesurrendered himself to Captain Maitland, of the Bellerophon; on the 24thhe arrived in that ship at Torbay, and on the twenty-sixth he sailed toPlymouth, to which port tens of thousands of persons crowded from allparts of England to obtain a sight of him. He was not allowed to land,but on the seventh of August he was removed on board the Northumberland,Captain Cockburn, which sailed on the following day for St. Helena.Napoleon is now dead and gone, but his name will live for ever. It makesmy heart ache to think that such a man should have been so deceived anddeluded as to the character of the English Government, so much so, as toflatter himself for a moment that he would ever receive justice or mercyat their hands! Noble, generous, forgiving, and possessing all theattributes of a truly brave man himself, he little dreamt of thefate that awaited him; he had heard of the generosity of the Englishcharacter, he knew the English to be brave, he had always found them so,but he was deceived as to their power and influence over the Government;he was grossly ignorant of the state and character of the BritishParliament; he had read De Lolme and other popular writers upon theBritish Constitution, and he fell into the fatal, the irretrievableerror, of believing that the practice of that constitution was the samething as the theory described by these writers; and thus he was betrayedinto a gulf from whence he was never to be extricated. I have beforeobserved, that at the Congress of Vienna it was proposed and seriouslyurged to seize Napoleon at Elba, and to convey him to St. Helena; andthose who proposed this measure had taken care to have all things inreadiness to carry their project into execution, in case it had beenagreed to. No time was, therefore, now lost in acting upon this plan.The English Ministers knew the sentiments of the Allied Despots upon thesubject, and the brave Napoleon, the fallen Emperor, was shipped off tolinger, pine, and rot upon a barren rock, in a distant and pestilentialclimate, in the same way that we would send out a wretch convicted ofthe highest crimes, as a transport for life. He who had spared Emperors,Kings, and Princes--he who had restored them to their thrones afterhaving bravely conquered them, was now treated like a common convicttransport! Disgraceful, damnable, imperishable blot in the escutcheon ofEngland's character!!!

The Assembly of France now met, and passed such laws as might naturallybe expected in a country filled with foreign troops. Treaties wereentered into by the restored Monarch, to settle the terms of peace, andwere signed on the twentieth of July. By these treaties France lost allthe conquered territory which she had been allowed to retain in 1814,and was placed nearly in the same geographical situation as before therevolution. One hundred and fifty thousand troops of the five AlliedPowers were to remain in France for five years; France was to maintainthem, and pay a large pecuniary indemnity, in which a provision was madefor the claims of British subjects; and all other matters, good, bad,and indifferent, were to be settled by a convention, to be held atVienna. The expenditure of this year, drawn out of the pockets of JohnGull, amounted to no less a sum than EIGHTY ONE MILLIONS, of whichTWENTY-SEVEN MILLIONS were borrowed by loan. The Honourable House ofCommons voted TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS as an additional remunerationto the Duke of Wellington. In the meantime, the wretchedness of thepeople of Ireland had driven them to a state of desperation; theresistance to the collection of the TITHES became general in manycounties, and a large army of regulars and militia was employed to putdown the poor, starved, distressed, and plundered people. Many liveswere lost, and a special commission was appointed, by which greatnumbers were found guilty, and transported to Botany Bay, and all thisarose from the most horrid system of rapine and plunder that everdisgraced any nation on the face of the earth.

At the latter end of July, 1815, I was one night taken suddenly ill; Ihad gone to bed in high robust health, but about three o'clock in themorning I was awoke by a most violent attack in my head, which causeda sensation like the ringing of a church bell in my ear. The fact was,that a sudden pressure of blood upon the brain had taken place. Theeffect was such that I was almost blind and speechless. My surgeon, Mr.Davis, of Andover, was instantly sent for; but, before he could arrive,I had fainted away four or five times, and he found me in such a state,without any pulse, that he at first hesitated to bleed me; however, uponmy urging him to do so, he complied, and the horrid noise which wascaused in my head by the blood rushing through my brain with acceleratedvelocity, somewhat abated, and in the course of the day it wore off, andbecame like the singing of a tea-kettle. This attack was so violent, andleft such a weakness, that I was incapable of rising from my bed, and itwas several days before I could walk across the room without assistance.As soon as I was able, which was in four or five days, I drove to Bath,for the advice of Dr. Parry, one of the most eminent physicians of theday, and under whose care one of my family had recovered from the verypoint of death. Dr. Parry and myself had been upon very friendly andintimate terms, during the time I had lived in Bath, and he had alwaysattended my family while I was there.

When I had described to him the way in which I was taken, and theextraordinary sensation and noise which I had in my head, which stillcontinued like the singing of a teakettle, he said, "You have had anarrow escape, Sir; and had you not been a very temperate man, you wouldhave never spoken again; you have had a violent pressure of blood uponthe brain, and you are wholly indebted for your safety to your temperatemanner of living; if, however, you will put yourself under my care, andstrictly follow my advice, I am confident that I can effect a radicalcure, so that you will be no longer liable to a return of yourcomplaint. The means I propose will be slow and tedious, but they willbe certain. If you return into the country, and follow the courseusually pursued in similar cases, you will, in all probability, beapparently recovered, and as well as ever in a month; but they take myword for it, you will be very liable to a repetition of the same sortof attack, which will very likely prove fatal." I told him that I wouldmost certainly place myself in his hands, and scrupulously follow hisdirections. "Well, then," said he, "I shall have you bled twice beforeyou leave Bath, and my directions are, that you abstain from allfermented liquors; eat very sparingly of animal food, take regularstrong exercise, and lose a pound of blood at least once a month, fora twelvemonth." I certainly looked at him with some degree ofastonishment, but when I saw that he was serious and in earnest, Ireplied, "If you say that all this is absolutely necessary for therecovery of may health, it shall be done; but so excessively weak andlanguid am I at present, that I do not think I shall be able to takewhat you call strong exercise. I drove my tandem down here yesterday tosee you, and I was so excessively exhausted, that I was obliged to becarried out of the carriage into the inn where I arrived." "O," saidhe, "driving fifty miles in a tandem may be very good exercise for yourhorses; but it is not sufficient exercise for you; you must take regularwalking and riding exercise. To keep a man in good health, it is alwaysnecessary that he should take sufficient exercise to make it a labour;it is indispensible for the health of man that he should labour--and itwill be absolutely necessary to your recovery, that you labour daily. Iassure you, my good friend," added he, "there is not one in a thousandthat ever recover from such an attack as you have had. I never knew apatient who had the resolution to follow the advice which I have givenyou; I rely, however, upon your good sense, to concur with me in theabsolute necessity of reducing your system very low, by abstaining fromfermented liquors and animal food--by laborious exercise--and bya constant and regular succession of copious bleeding; and I haveconfidence in your courage and perseverance in carrying my plan intoexecution, by which I mean to effect a permanent and radical cure; thatis to say, I mean that you shall be rendered as perfectly free from anyfuture attack of the sort, as you were when you were born. I know theprecise nature of your complaint well, and I am confident of the remedy,although I have no particular precedent, because I never knew any oneact up to the rules I have laid down for you. I know that you have had aviolent pressure of blood upon the brain; I know, also, that this attackwas not produced by excess or intemperance, but that it arose from yourhaving naturally too great a disposition of blood to the head. I knowthat your system has received a violent shock, that the blood-vesselsupon your brain have been distended, and thereby rendered liable toanother and a more fatal attack, unless it can be guarded against by atotal alteration of your whole system, which can alone be accomplishedby the means that I have suggested." Here he made a short pause, andthen earnestly demanded if I was prepared to give him my word that Iwould act up to his directions; "because," added he, significantly, "Iknow if you once make up your mind to it, and give me your word that youwill do it, that our object will be attained."

Thus it is, that a clever and intelligent physician, by flattering hispatient, prevails upon him to encounter what would otherwise appear tobe insurmountable difficulties; and thus it is, that human nature isable to bear so much. I promised strictly to abide by his prescription,both as to regimen, exercise, and bleeding. He then sent for Mr. GeorgeNorman, the surgeon, and I was bled immediately. This being done,the doctor said that he would call again in the morning, and see thebleeding repeated, and then I should have nothing to do but to return tomy home in the country, and follow the plan that he laid down for me.He did so; and, although I was in a state of great weakness, I reachedMiddleton Cottage the same evening, having driven my tandem fifty milesin the afternoon.

A circumstance that occurred at this time made such a lasting impressionupon my memory, that I shall record it for the benefit of futuregenerations. Although it is of a private and pecuniary nature, yet Isuspect that it will not be altogether devoid of interest, as it makespart of my history. When I left Rowfant, in Sussex, my stock, crops,underwood, and furniture, produced a very considerable sum, amounting toeight thousand pounds; and, after paying off all pecuniary demands uponme, I purchased five thousand pounds in Exchequer Bills, which I tookwith me to Middleton Cottage, and opened an account with Messrs. Heaths,the bankers, of Andover. In their hands I deposited several hundredpounds, and the Exchequer Bills, taking all their notes, and drawingupon them for what sums I required to furnish my house, stock my farm,&c. &c., they turning the Exchequer Bills into cash as often as I wantedmoney. I took care never, for any length of time, to have less than fivehundred pounds in cash in their hands, generally several hundreds more,and sometimes as much as fifteen hundred pounds balance of cash in myfavour, which they had the use of, as well as the advantage of my takingtheir notes, and circulating them round the country, besides what I keptin my house. I stocked my farms, both in Hampshire and Wiltshire, ata most expensive time, giving as high as fifty guineas each for mycart-horses; and as I had made great alterations and improvements, ata heavy expense, the money flew pretty fast. When I was taken sodangerously ill, the news spread over the country with considerablerapidity, and, amongst others, it seems it reached the ears of mybankers, who, for the _first time_, the next morning sent in my accountby the post, saying, that as I had _overdrawn_ it a few pounds, they